Nextgen Kids: Eve of Apocalypse

Sector JP, Chapter 5: The Star Kodama

Here it is, the penultimate chapter!

Chapter 5: The Star Kodama

Shooting stars are beautiful. They say that if you wish on a shooting star, it comes true.

In actuality, shooting stars are meteors that are hurdling through the atmosphere at breakneck speed, disintegrating as they burn entering our planet. But if a meteor manages to pass through our atmosphere, the entire planet would explode in a fiery blaze. A billion years ago, the Earth was struck by such a meteor, and an entire species of dinosaurs died. Then the Earth turned into ice and became the subject of a movie with a lot of sequels.

Now what if I told you the story of a girl who was inspired by this cataclysm? She was a great pyrotechnician who traveled the world, looking for all sorts of materials to make her creations. Chaos and destruction happened everywhere she went. People gazed awestruck at the colorful explosions in the sky. The hypnotic booms and b'aws. But that was their downfall. One town's citizens began to see everything as a candy land, so they tried to eat everything. One town's citizens all suddenly shrunk to the size of beetles in a few seconds. And for a whole month, the citizens of a town could only taste hotdogs.

Why did these things happen? Well, they were all materials dropped from that girl's fireworks. Her shells became renowned as a powerful force. Where her colorful rockets flew, their targets reduced to dust. She blew up skyscrapers. She blew up mountains. And one day... she blew up the moon.

The sky was clear of clouds over Karakura Forest, and the night sky sparkled with stars. Shooting stars whooshed over the heavens. The glow of their white strips shone off Kodama's dark, lively eyes. "Well, if that isn't a good bedtime story on the night of a meteor shower." Karin remarked. The Sector JP friends were watching the stars fall from the mountain path to their treehouse.

"Kodama-chan, can't we just enjoy the shooting stars?" Ururu asked, sitting with her legs arched up and her arms wrapped around them. Jinta lay beside her, his head resting on his hands. "Let's make wishes to them, just like you said. Like..." She folded her hands in prayer and closed her eyes, "I wish for a beautiful new year."

"Yeah? Well, I wish for something totally random and exciting to happen next year." Jinta smirked.

"Oh, you guys are a bunch of small-dreamers." Kodama brushed off. "But I can't just stand here and watch stars fall from the sky. Rather," she smirked and pulled a bazooka out from under her robe, "I'm more about literally shooting for the stars. Rather, I want to MAKE the stars myself! The power I can wield with my own two hands should be feared across galaxies! Behold, a single tiny shell." She held a hand-size aerial shell in her right hand, tossing it up and down. "I crafted this item, and wherever I decide to fire, it will destroy." She chucked it in her bazooka. "Now, with but a single pull of my trigger," she aimed the gun at the forest and made the gesture of clicking the switch, "a whole land can be reduced to ash. I hold the power of destruction in the palms of my hands."

With a serious look, Kodama aimed the gun up and locked on to the stars. "Now, watch as I shoot down one of your precious stars!" And so, with a single click of the trigger, the mortar went flying like one of the comets. It only went so far up the sky before it burst into colorful green.

"Our precious stars are still standing." Yuzu sweatdropped. "Er, metaphorically."

"Mmmmm!" Kodama grumbled. "Well, just wait, one day I'll create fireworks that can blow up comets AND moons! I know I can do it." She turned around and stared up at the shooting stars. "Ever since I was little, the thing I loved the most were explosions. I watch any and every movie that has explosions. I study the shape and texture of the expanding smoke. Like when Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star, or when they blew up the second half-assed Death Star. My favorite items in Zelda are bombs and my favorite piece of classic 2x4 technology is M.A.R.B.L.E.s. With fireworks, I can add art to explosions. Fireworks capture the true beauty of blowing things up. My parents were my heroes. They were the top fireworks experts. Day after day, they experimented with new materials, creating more art and perfecting their work. In the end, they-"